Tim Caynes

"I work closely with the design, strategy and insight teams at Foolproof.”

I’m a Principal Designer at Foolproof which means I’m responsible for the integrity of the design thinking that shapes the work that we do.

I’ve been flapping around in the space between understanding and creativity for 20 years trying to make sense of the venn diagrams of human behaviours and outcomes and while it still sometimes feels a bit like the doldrums in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator in there, I occasionally have an epiphany where insight and design collide in a momentary mad mind fusion and I suddenly understand why something is important.

I’m surrounded by people at Foolproof who are far cleverer than me who actually then craft and deliver the great customer experiences, but it’s my job to remind them what the important thing was and to challenge their own thinking.

I work closely with the design, strategy and insight teams at Foolproof, and with client stakeholders and third parties, to deliver world-class, evidence-based designs for global brands such as Shell, Santander, Lloyds, Belron, Sky and HSBC.

As Principal Designer, I’m focused on understanding user needs and behaviours, contexts of use, and interactions with information systems, to deliver creative solutions that seize the opportunity to transform the user experience and commercial outcomes, which is the longest way I could think of to say, I try and make things better by design.

Before joining Foolproof, I was user experience manager at Sun Microsystems, working on enterprise-wide, web-based deployments, and I’ve worked as a freelance user experience consultant. I’ve also spent a number of years in a record shop and, yes, it was like Hi Fidelity.